Hobbs: Tigers return to site of 'Rock Bottom Game'

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A fair ration of LSU’s younger lads weren’t even born the last time the Tigers played here on Arkansas’

actual campus, so it’s hard to put it on them.

Not that anybody would recognize this place from back then anyway.

Northwest Arkansas is a boom area these days. It’s almost like Orlando without the traffic snarl and theme parks.

Drive through the area north of quaint

little Fayetteville and you see rows of high-rise hotels and all the

familiar chain

restaurants — for no apparent reason, except to lap up the expense

accounts of all the hopeful executives who must visit here

to pay homage to Wal-Mart world headquarters just down the road a

piece.

It was still nothing but out in the sticks and Ozark hills and hollers the last time LSU played football here.

Some ancient state law requires the Razorbacks to play two games a year in Little Rock, one of them a conference game, even

though War Memorial Stadium is basically a cozy, little outdated dump.

But it always made sense to choose the LSU game since school was out for the holidays anyway.

Never mind that, with Arkansas’ largest shopping mall fairly near the stadium, it made for some interesting traffic patterns

having a football game compete bumper-to-bumper with Black Friday.

But that’s not why today’s game is here on campus again.

A year ago when the two awkward rivals met in Baton Rouge, they were ranked No. 1 and No. 3 in the BCS rankings, which certainly

did spice things up more than a contrived trophy for the game. LSU won 41-17, with much Honey Badger input.

A guess is that Arkansas, with star quarterback Tyler Wilson coming back, figured there was no reason that something similar

wouldn’t be at stake this year, so why not have such a showcase game in Reynolds Razorback Stadium, which has 25,000 more

seats and many more of college football’s creature comforts.

That part hasn’t worked out so well.

LSU is pretty much OK, 9-2 and just on the outside edge of the national title picture, right there on the verge of at least

being able to figure out some pipe-dream mathematical possibilities.

Arkansas, which began the season with similar aspirations, is 4-7 and one the season’s more spectacular, flaming flops, with a new coaching search (pipe dreams of Jon Gruden) presumably well beyond the hand-holding stage to replace what

was already an interim leader in quirky John L. Smith.

So, frankly, I’m not sure what LSU’s incentive is here.

What is LSU’s Les Miles going to say to say to energize his troops beforehand?